


So Close, So Far

by Knight-Shy (Miss_Awkward)



Series: Commissions [1]
Category: Indiana Jones Series
Genre: Gen, Implied Elsa Schneider/Henry "Indiana" Jones, Implied Relationship, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Awkward/pseuds/Knight-Shy
Summary: It was right there...!





	So Close, So Far

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first commission piece!
> 
> Scene adaptation from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the scene called 'Elsa's Choice.'

Her eyes alighted upon the earthenware chalice just  _sitting there,_  calling to her. The worn, battered clay cup was so innocuous, so  _plain_ despite the wonders she knew it could perform. The miracle of life eternal that it held within it. It was lighter than the jewel-encrusted fake Donovan fell to, yet it would be such a  _beautiful_ burden she would gleefully carry. And it was just sitting there.  

  

The cup of eternal life was just sitting there on the ground like a piece of rubbish. It was  _right there._   

  

She could take it. Immortality was just waiting for her—Elsa looked over at the American who had helped her reach this point as she rose from her crouched position, fingers clutching the ancient treasure tightly, possessively—just waiting for  _them_.  

  

She gave the man she had grown infatuated with a smile—obsessed and overflowing with unadulterated madness—and showed him the chalice of miracles. "We have got it. Come on!" Certainly, he would be as proud as she was. Indy would have the chance to see the secrets of the world with her; they would be unstoppable. She wasn't focused on her feet, her eyes trained themselves on Indiana Jones.  

  

Slowly, in her path backwards, her heels crossed upon the edge of the Great Seal inscribed upon the floor. The warning that the Knight had given them, the boundary was merely a limit that she had to surpass; Indy would help her surpass it. He would always help her surpass it.  

  

_Wouldn't he?_  

  

"Elsa!" He shouted to her, worry clouding his face as he watched her. "Elsa, don't move!"  

  

She paid him no heed. The glory of the Grail, the thought of immortality, had its claws rooted in her mind just as firmly as she clutched the chalice. Elsa reached out with it, showing Indy her treasure like a giddy child showing their parents their hard-won prize. "It's ours, Indy! Yours and mine."  

  

"Elsa, don't cross the Seal." The heels of her boots crossed the center of the Great Seal, the giddy smile on her face twisting into confusion as she looked at the man she had worked with. Didn't he want immortality? Didn’t he want to be with her, to discover the world anew with her? "Elsa, the Knight warned us not to take the Grail from here!"  

 

_That Knight was a fool who knew no sense of gain! A fool who knew not the worth of such a treasure!_  

  

A rumbling, heavy and foreboding, filled the air of the cavern as she froze upon the center of the silver boundary line. She turned to the walls, the high ceiling above them, and stared as rocks and dirt fell from above, the Templar statues trembling violently. The ground roared and quaked. She lost her balance and fell upon the Great Seal, the Grail slipping from her hands and bouncing away.  

  

No, she wasn't going to risk this. The Grail belonged to her!  

  

~~_IT WAS HER'S!_  ~~

  

She pushed herself off the Seal and scrambled towards the artifact, eyes blown wide as the ground started to crack. No! She couldn't—wouldn't—give the Grail up! It slipped from her grasp and into the growing chasm. She clung to the ground, leather gloves making her grasp on anything a trial of focus and desperation. Her heart pounded in her ears, in her head.   

 

_This wasn't fair!_  

  

A shriek of unbridled terror slipped from her throat as she slipped further into the crevasse, scrabbling for some kind of traction. Her fearful eyes watched as Indy slid across the slanted stone, his rough hands grasping at hers. The sweat coating his palms and her weight were a combination that spelled trouble.   

  

Elsa's grip on Indy's hands was slipping the longer she dangled over the bottomless abyss below.  

  

"Elsa, Elsa," he tried to plead with her as she turned slowly in his grasp. The Grail sat temptingly on the ledge behind her, calling to her like a siren in the midst of a storm. If she just... Elsa yanked an arm free of her want-to-be savior, stretching towards the Grail with the fervor of a mad woman. "Elsa, please! Give me your other hand, honey. I can't hold you."  

  

"I can reach it," muttered the woman as she reached further towards the Grail, eyes wild with fear and greed. "I can reach it..." Elsa panted quietly even as her hand started to slip from Indy's grasp, her sweat-slick hand slowly inching free of her leather glove.  

  

"Elsa! Give me your hand," Indy pleaded with the blonde, panic rising as he struggled to keep ahold of her. She ignored his pleading. Elsa stretched further, pushing herself to her limits to reach that holy object, that font of immortality. "Give me your other hand!"  

  

She ignored him. She had to have it. It was right there,  _right there!_  

  

Her fingertips brushed against the Grail, a maddening sense of glee filling her body as she nearly won back her prize from the grips of failure. She almost had it! Her archeologist, her dear Indy, slipped further down the into the crevasse and she, in turn, slipped from his grasp. A shriek of utter terror, of infuriated disbelief slipped from her throat as she fell into the gaping maw of the earth.   

  

_"ELSA!"_  Indy's horrified scream was the last she heard as she was swallowed up into the darkness, devoured by the bottomless abyss below.   

  

But her last thoughts were not of the man she proclaimed affection, not the man she claimed to want to share immortality with. She did not think of the death that awaited her at the end of her fall, the inevitable end that would take her. No, her last thoughts were of the beaten carpenter's chalice, the immortality that she sought to take for herself—for  _Indy_. It was right there, it was in her grasp! It wasn't fair!   

  

Immortality had been just at the tips of her fingers!  

  

Alas, it was so close,  _yet so far._  

**Author's Note:**

> You know what _is_ closer than the Grail?  
>  My tumblr!  
> [Personal](http://knight-shys.tumblr.com/)  
> [Writing and Art](http://knight-shy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
